Can I prune pumpkin?

[darcymum]

Its taking over the whole vegetable patch. I don't want to kill it though. Any advice wise ones?

Where are all the gardeners then?

I'm no expert but if you cut it then you probably won't get any fruit - I grew one last year and the pumpkins themselves grew quite a long way out from the central bit where the roots enter the ground - I hope that makes sense?

It has some little tiny pumpkins on it already, I thought maybe if I trim the stems it will put all that energy into growing pumpkins?

Ooh - just got a pumpkin plant - not planted it yet, just how big has it grown ? Not sure if I have room ....

Darcymum - you are correct: once it has set fruit (pumpkins) you can sever each arm two leaves away from the pumpkins and it will push the fruit on. It will probably also produce extra limbs as well though, because they are prolific and vigorous plants. Yes you can trim it to keep it within bounds and give it huge amounts of water to swell the pumpkins. Incidentally, if you have room, just allow the tendrils to climb in a certain direction away from the border to keep space.

Thank you BCBG I will do that. notapizza mine has grown about 1 meter in each direction from the base.

Hmmm will have to have a think now - thats big !

No, its early days yet - that is not big in pumpkin terms yet!

BTW you can train them up fences.

Can they grow in shade ? Like around the trampoline ?

If you bury the ends of the "limbs" then they develop roots and will encourage any pumpkins to be bigger. It also means that they don't wander round the rest of the garden.

Prefer hot sunshine. Think Kentucky sunshine.

Can I prune courgettes as well?

Yes but generally I wouldn't because I want the veg....

Pumpkin update!

We have one big pumpkin growing on the ground, do it need to raise it off the ground so that it doesn't rot?

i have just thrown two pumpkins away they were infested and all squidgy, so have harvested the other four and popped them on blanket in greenhouse to fully ripen...

if you keep pumpkin on plant, maybe you could pop some straw/grass cuttings underneath....

All my questions answered thanks! Has anyone else noticed that the flowers smell like baby sick?

My pumpkin fell off my plant so Ive just pulled it up.

I was still gettling loads of flowers, would it have grown another pumpkin? I thorght they only grew one

Could I quickly pull it out of the bin and stick it back in the ground.